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Friday, October 31, 2008

So I have this fabulous idea. I'm gonna get a facial peel!! Why not? My mom gets them and they work great for her skin. I got a coupon for 20% at Toppers to get anything facial wise, so I pick t his European facial that has massage of your feet and hands and arms included! Wow, sounds decadent, right? Oh, and the facial part of in included a "vitamin C peel". Lalala, sounded good to me, sign me up.

The procedure was heavenly. She had me lay on the warmed bed, she massaged my hands and arms, and then put plastic around them and put each hand into a containor of some sort (I didn't look, I was practically sleeping) that keep gently head on the hands. Then she even did a little foot massage and at the end wrapped them in a warm towel and tucked them back under the sheet.

bliss bliss bliss

the facial part of it seemed normal enough, some cleansing, some exfoliating using Papaya, lots of other goops and creams that were whisked on and whisked off. The peel itself didn't feel so bad, it tingled a little, but she warned me of that. Also, she said since she knew I had sensitive skin (we'd done stuff before), she was mixing up the lightest possible dose of this stuff to use in the peel. Sure great, sounds perfect. Time passes, my face is feeling warm, but nothing bad. Unfortunately for me, I have a high pain tolerance (thanks Mom) so sometimes I wonder if what I'm feeling as just a feeling should be having me call the police.

Anyway, she cleans it all off and my face feels warm, but soooooooooooooooooo smooth. My skin is never smooth. My skin and I have had a contentious relationship since the 1980s, with brief intervals of lovey-dovely (thank you accutane). I have NEVER NEVER NEVER been able to find the products that my skin is looking for.

But i digress.

That night, I went home, used a gentle cleanser on my pinky face, put some moisturizer for sensitive skin on it and went to bed, no problem. Got up the next morning, hmmm, still red, but no problem, cleaned it with a gentle cleanser, but on sunscreen, moisturzier, and lathered on my foundation. They said I could!!!! Hmm, looks a little thick, but will have to do.

Mid-morning it happened. I caught myself in the middle of scratching my neck right under my chin. uuuuuuurrrrrrrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. It's hot there. It itches. It makes me want to scratch the rest of my face. My face is hot and itchy and has that gross make-up sitting on top of a layer of burnt off skin!@!!!!!!!! What was I thinking???? I didn't think this through AT ALL.

I make it through the rest of the day and even stop over my parents house for dinner where my mom gives me a cold compress to put under my chin, but then my dad says he can't talk to me when I'm standing there like that, so whatever, his loss. :-)

I get home, and use neutrogena and a washcloth. Rubbing your skin with a washcloth NEVER felt as good as it did to me just then. don't even bother to compare, you lose.

Without the makeup the skin looks REALLY red and hot, and rough feeling, with just the strart of little crusty bits near my lips.

Charming Leah. You look delish.

I lather it all up with my all organic for senstive skin moisturizer and go to bed.

Day 3

Wake up, skin feels so rough and nasty, but less warm then yesterday. I wash it, now it's warm and irritated again. I actually put makeup on top of this seething bubbling mess and march on in to work.

I tried to camoflage. I wore my hair straight and down so it would half cover my face. I kept all the lights off in my office, which I often do. All to no avail. The NANOSECOND my friend Eric saw me, he was like, oh my god, are you okay?

He says he thought I was crying. You see, with this day, not only was it red and itchy and hot and starting to be scaly, now it was swollen too. I almost made it through the entire day without seeing anyway, and was getting ready to leave when there was the "emergency" meeting. darnnit. Thankfully the lights were off for most of them and I was able to escape quickly after they did get turned on. Not that I didn't fill everyone in on what I did. I'm all about sharing my personal stupidities with others.

I literally drove home at like 180 miles an hour just so I could wash my face. Okay, it wasn't that fast, but it was fast. That was the best face washing I ever had in my entire life. Just to have the opportunity to rub the washcloth all over my poor face......AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH. I probably should have been more gentle but I'm only human.

Put my goop on it, it feels warm and nasty and scaly. I hate it. And went to bed. And then woke up. Needed more advil. On a good note, I do think the heat factor has scaled back a bit so I think it won't slide off my skull and leave me with a lot of explaining to do.

Lessons Learned:

1. If you have sensitive skin, don't forget that a peel is not like an exfoliating masque. A peel is liquid acid poured directly onto your face, and you asked for it!!!!!!

All my years I have been blessed/cursed with being sensitive. No, not the emo kind of you hurted my feelings type. Sensitive to light, sensitive to noise. Skin sensitivities. Mood sensitivities.

Speaking of noise sensitivity, I work in this building that they gut out completely and reconfigure with new offices and cube areas every time a company moves in and out. Naturally this means that the materials they use for the internal walls and doors are not really, what shall I say......substantial. Yes, they are not substantial.

I'll be sitting at my desk merrily working along and then it hits! the point were I can't not ignore the annoying noises anymore!! The wind blows through our vents so powerfully that the ceiling tiles and lights vibrate, which makes any cheap wall next to them vibrate.

I used to stand on my chair (my spinning office chair - oh the possiblities) and slam the light fixtures up and down hoping to get them to set better and not vibrate. Yeah, a patch for a much bigger problem. Because later, I'll be happily working when the wall right in front of me will start vibrating so loudly that I'm forced to leap out my seat and place both hands firmly on the wall, as if I was giving a faith healing in Southern Georgia someone. "Be-yuh Healyuhd!!" that stops the wall. But then one of the overhead ceiling tiles starts in.

It's usually at the point that I pull my ipod out. I know it's totally me, and it also depends on whether I'm about to have, am having, or am getting over a migraine. Small repetitive noises BOTHER ME SOOO MUCH when I have a migraine or one coming on. It's actually a sign for me now. I was sitting in a meeting once, there were 4 or5 other people there. And I realized that I could hear one gentleman's watch ticking. But it wasn't like just any ticking, is was loud enough that I couldn't concentrate. I'm looking around the room and no one else notices, so it's just me. And I start to get irritated, because how am I supposed to concentrate with this horrible ticticticticitic constantly going. I never say anything because I know it's me.

Some migraineurs get auras, I get sensitivity to sound. And actually it's sensitivity to small sounds when the area is generally quiet. Driving, listing to the radio, the tv, not a problem. But if I'm sitting somewhere quitely trying to work, I can hear the mice stomping in the attic. I know if there are electronics turned on in the room because I can hear their vibration.

oh well. it's not much of a super-power, and I have to have the migraines that go with it, so I'd probably give it up if I could! :-)

Sunday, October 26, 2008

So there I was, in Home Depot, which in itself is unusual because I've been mad at Home Depot for years....they treated me like I was a stupid girl so Lowe's has had my business for several years.

Anyway, so there I was, in Home Depot due to laziness, or rather gas-thriftiness, because the Home Depot was on my way home from work. I needed mulch for my newly planted tender little lilac sproutlings so they would be bedded down all cozy for the winter. Oh, you say, what happened to the last bag of mulch that was poured over them? Well let me tell you.....some poor planning on my part caused the mulch to be spread over an area of about 10 feet square. (I put the lilacs under where the bird feeder hangs from my deck - the rotten little piggy birds and squirrels pushed all the mulch into the grass!)

My bird feeder now hangs over the north side of the deck, where little grows but moss and the big plastic tube that carries water from my downspout away from my foundation and towards the people who live below me on the hill. How awesome is it to live on the top of a hill???

I tried picking the little pieces of mulch out of the grass and piling them back around the lilac sproutlings, but it looked pretty sad. And it was time-consuming. I pictured people in all the other townhomes looking out their windows at me and thinking, poor girl, she's trying to re-use dispersed mulch, doesn't she know any better? So off to Home Depot I went.

It's not really the outside stuff time of year so the outside area was pretty bare and scary. I went all the way to the back where there were these 30 foot high aisles under a metal roof (but still outside). I found my bag o' mulch and was putting it in my cart when.....

There were all these noises around me, I couldn't quite put my finger on it. Little noises. Rustly noises. I was the only person out in this area, so I'm starting to get creeped out.....zombies? rampaging stalkers? bugs? Then it sinks in....birds. Birds were everywhere. Flying overhead under the metal roof, bopping around on the ground in that little bird way they have....sitting on bags of mulch looking at me. They were everywhere. So now I'm getting totally creeped out, like, have they come to carry me away to some other dimension (you see, that's the kind of stuff that goes through my mind when I'm on my own somewhere, I really shouldn't be left unattended). Come to think of it, I'm usually worrying about another dimension, I should probably look into that.

Anyway, so I carefully place my bag o' mulch in my cart and slowly head towards a door I see nearby to go back into the building. I didn't want to irritate any birds and have them go all Hitchcock on me. The next aisle over, I see the source of the problem. Dumb old Home Depot has placed their bird feed OUTSIDE. Where the BIRDS ARE. One of them must of had a switchblade or something because they were eating out of various bags of bird feed that had holes in them.

I ran past as fast as I could and got safely back inside.

Lowe's keeps their bird feed inside, even when it's competing for space with the christmas decorations.

By the way, I was back at Home Depot today, returning a couple things I bought extra of, and picking up a few other things.....and they were nice! To me! A girl! I hope it's a theme now and not something unusual.

Cause it would be a lot easier to just keep stopping on my way home from work at Home Depot rather than drive all the way over to Lowe's, who has recently ticked me off by installing those quarter thingys on the shopping carts, forcing me to always have a quarter with me to use a cart. I know it's silly, but I am SO OFFENDED by those things. I always put my cart in one of the return areas or back by the door using my own freewill. But now you don't trust me? We couldn't have had a talk about this before you just went ahead and did this??? So maybe now I'm mad at Lowe's and not mad at Home Depot. It would be pretty convenient for me.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Okay, so I was flipping through the stations (yes I am a terrible channel surfer, no one should have to be in the same room with me) and I caught the end of Purple Rain. Before I knew it, I was singing along like a total dork. Let's face it, Prince sure knew how to make music. I don't care if you disagree, I'm right.

On a completely different topic, but slightly related because the same station is still on the tv.....it's some dumb i-wanna-be-in-a-rock-band show and they bring out Sebastian Bach and Alice Cooper.

What the hell happened to Sebastian Bach? Dude, it sucks getting old. I'm not even sure it's the same guy, he doesn't look like I remember him AT ALL. On the other hand though, Alice Cooper looks the same to me....just as I remember him.

Oh my god, now pop-up video is on. I must be on the old-person channel....yep, sure enough it's VH1 classic. I'm going to go change the channel and pull myself back into this millennium. But after that I think I'm going to get my purple rain soundtrack and blare it in the car on the way to work tomorrow.....maybe....okay, definitely.

Well, it seems that the news from the Vet about Patches is not so good. Turns out one of the tumors removed was in fact malignant, and the doctor said in these cases, the cat usually will survive another 7-12 months. So it appears my little Patches has numbered days. Of course, there is a chance she'll be the percentage that is fine and lives several more years, but I have a bad feeling...that one tumor was pretty bad and nasty, and it got that way real sudden-like. I guess I will just be taking it a day at a time with her. At the moment, she is peppier than I have seen her in a long time, so I know for a fact she feels pretty darn good at the moment.

Apparently there is the option to give cats chemotherapy and all that, but I just can't do that to her. I don't know what I'll do without her - she's not like a normal cat at all, doesn't carry a grudge, just wants to love and be loved. She's a little sweetie pie.

Bummer bummer bummer.

Here's my little Franken-kitty, although she looks lazy in this picture, don't be fooled. She has 17 stitches total but is leaping about all over the place at the moment. We go to the vet on friday to get them removed (and I can't imagine AT ALL how that's going to go......) and then we are home free until further notice.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Patches is my cat. One of my cats. I adopted her from Spay and Save back in May of 2000. She is the sweetest-tempered little thing, just full of love. I noticed a couple weeks ago that she seemed to have some lumps under her skin near her armpits (leg-pits?).....I don't pick her up that often, neither of my cats are the type that like to be carried around. They love sitting on my lap, or laying in bed with me, but don't like being picked up, so I hardly ever pick them up. Now I feel so guilty for not knowing for sure how long these things were there....I took her to the vet and they did an x-ray of her chest...she has kitty breast cancer. I guess on cats it's the mammary gland, but I hate that word...mammary. Mammmmmmmarrryy. Mam-ry.

yech.

Anyway, she's scheduled for an operation on Monday to take out the lumps (fortunately the x-ray showed that it's not invaded into her lungs or anything). The doctor seemed optimistic that they can cut it all out and she'll be fine.

One thing she said is that since I don't know for sure how old she was when I got her (spay and save said probably about a year old), she may have gotten spayed when older than a year old, and apparently you should spay your cats as young as you can. If you wait until they are older, they are WAY more likely to get this cancer. My poor little girl.

I am SO worried..... :-( I hope I'm doing the right thing and not making her go through something for nothing. About 274 years ago I worked at a vet for 5 minutes and it killed me when you would see these poor animals suffering, but people wouldn't put them down because they loved them....but really they were being selfish. I know that sounds mean, but I don't mean it mean. I haven't seen any changes in her behavior so I'm hoping that means she isn't in pain from these things, and her appetite seems fine. She does seem to sleep more than she used to, which of course, for a cat, means she's sleeping 26 out of the 24 hours in a day. Why aren't I a cat?

Oh, that's right, because then I'd have mammammmmary glands. ew.

Keep your fingers crossed for my girl on Monday, if all goes well, I'll have her home with me again on Tuesday.